Thursday, January 31, 2013

Be Berry Berry Quiet

Thursay Story Strip Day.

Last Monday I promised you a newspaper strip by Michael Berry. I knew I had it somewhere, but I hadn't remembered that is was realistic strip. This was at the start of his career as a cartoonist and it makes for an intereting comparison. I also had in my files one tier that was dated 1943 and not signed by Berry. I will have to go back and see where that came from...






Wednesday, January 30, 2013

About Face

Wednesday Advertising Day.

Did the Caniff-influenced Mel Graff and Frank Robbins ever work together? I don't think so, but they did work for the same ad series in 1948/1950. Graff was the first to do these ads for Dr. Lyon's and Frank Robbins followed him. I have shown some of my own scans before, but added them to a set of new black and white samples.









Tuesday, January 29, 2013

It's A Cop!

Tuesday Comic Strip Day.

A couple of years ago I worked on a prposal for a newspaper strip featuring normal beat cops. I did some research and was surprised to find that no one had done this before. Or so it seemed. Last year I ran acorss this oddity, a short lived (and not very successful) strip about cops. I still think there is something there.












Monday, January 28, 2013

Thank Heavens For Michael Berry

Monday Cartoon Day.

Michael Berry was a respected cartoonist in the forties and fifties. Although he worked for all major magaiznes, his love for pretty girls got him a regular place at Esquire, where he fitted right in with the pin-up styles of his collegues. In the fifties, pin-ups were less in fashion and he shifted to the Humorama books with slightly racier stuff and got a regular position as cartoonist and frequent cover illustrator for The Sunday Pictorial Review. In fact, I have a huge lot of those which I might scan and share at a later date. When Playboy came, he immeadiately joined them, although his style and his girls may have been a bit too old-fashioned. Very little is known about him, not even when he died. I must have a newspaper strip he did, which I will dig out for tomorrow.











Sunday, January 27, 2013

The War At DC

Sunday Meskin Measures.

I always believed that when Meskin returned to DC in 1954, he was first assigned to Robert Kanigher and when their temperaments didn't fit well (toput it mildly) he was 'adopted' by the fantasy editor. But if you look at Stephen Brower's Mort Meskin Checklist, it isclear he was all over the place, doing stuff for the fantasy titles, a romance book, Showcase #5 and the war titles. I don't know what the precise order was, but here we see him drawing what essentially is a war story (would not have been out of place there, since some of those also used fantastical ideas) for his fifth outing in House of Mystery.






Saturday, January 26, 2013

Big And Bold

Saturday Leftover Day.

The more I see of this strip, the more I like it. I has style, action and good stories. Unfortunately, it seems the reprint series from classic comic press (to get their books, use the link on the right) has halted for now and that is a shame. So here is a short sequence from 1954, just to tease you.